Hagel has enough support for defense secretary WASHINGTON (AP) — Barring any new, damaging information, Chuck Hagel has secured the necessary votes for the Senate to confirm him to be the nation’s next defense secretary. A vote ending the bitter fight over President Barack Obama’s Cabinet choice is expected next week. Hagel cleared the threshold when five-term Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama said he would vote for the former two-term GOP senator from Nebraska after joining other ...

Pentagon notifies Congress of likely furloughs WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Congress on Wednesday that if automatic government spending cuts kick in on March 1 he may have to shorten the workweek for the “vast majority” of the Defense Department’s 800,000 civilian workers. They would lose one day of work per week, or 20 percent of their pay, for up to 22 weeks. Panetta also said the across-the-board spending reductions would “put us on a path toward a hollow force,...

White House announces anti-theft trade strategy WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration announced new efforts Wednesday to fight the growing theft of American trade secrets, a broad but relatively restrained response to a rapidly emerging global problem that was brought into sharp focus this week by fresh evidence linking cyberstealing to China’s military. Mentioning China but not specifically targeting that country, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the plan, which includes a new d...

Body of Canadian woman found in hotel water tank LOS ANGELES (AP) — Canadian tourist Elisa Lam had been missing for about two weeks when officials at the historic Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles found her body in a water cistern on the hotel roof. Guest complaints about low water pressure prompted a maintenance worker to make the gruesome discovery Tuesday, and officials were trying to determine if the 21 year old was killed or if her death was just a bizarre accident. The discovery of L...

Sony shows PlayStation 4 capabilities, but no box NEW YORK (AP) — Sony showed off what the PlayStation 4 can do, but not what it will look like. The Japanese electronics giant talked about its upcoming game console for the first time and said it will go on sale this holiday season. But Sony didn’t reveal the device itself. Presenters played games that were projected on screens in a converted opera house, but the PlayStations themselves were hidden backstage throughout Wednesday evening’s two-...

Massachusetts boy, trying to avoid bedtime, calls 911 BROCKTON, Mass. (AP) — Police in Massachusetts said a 10-year-old boy called 911 because he didn’t want to go to bed. Brockton police say the boy made the emergency call just after 8 p.m. Wednesday and told the dispatcher he was calling to report his mother because he did not want to go to bed. There was no emergency. The Enterprise reported that according to the police log, an officer went to the boy’s home and explained to him when it’s appr...

Obama weighs stepping in on gay marriage case WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing heightened expectations from gay rights supporters, the Obama administration is considering urging the Supreme Court to overturn California’s ban on gay marriage — a move that could have a far-reaching impact on same-sex couples across the country. The administration has one week to file a friend-of-the-court brief with the justices outlining its opinion on the California ban, known as Proposition 8. While an administr...

NYPD, Microsoft create crime-fighting tech system NEW YORK (AP) — A 911 call comes in about a possible bomb in lower Manhattan and an alert pops up on computer screens at the New York Police Department, instantly showing officers an interactive map of the neighborhood, footage from nearby security cameras, whether there are high radiation levels and whether any other threats have been made against the city. In a click, police know exactly what they’re getting into. Such a hypothetical scenari...

10 Things to Know for Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2013Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today: 1. POLICE CLAIM TO FIND TESTOSTERONE IN PISTORIUS HOME The suggestion that the Olympian double-amputee could have used performance-enhancing drugs came at his bail hearing for the killing of his girlfriend. 2. US TO IMPOSE SANCTIONS FOR CYBERESPIONAGE Obama's get-tough tactics on China could include fines, penalties and other trade restricti...

Autopsy confirms Mindy McCready's death as suicideHEBER SPRINGS (AP) — Authorities in Arkansas say preliminary autopsy results confirm country music singer Mindy McCready's death was a suicide. The Cleburne County sheriff said in a statement Wednesday that preliminary autopsy results from Arkansas' state crime lab show McCready's death was a suicide from a single gunshot wound to the head. Investigators have said McCready apparently shot and killed her late boyfriend's dog before she turned t...

Docs: Louisiana firm overstated storage for explosives A company with a multimillion-dollar military contract to dismantle explosives was so overrun with the dangerous materials, it was stored in overflowing containers and even among the trees at its facility. Just three years ago, the company told the Army it had plenty of space to safely store and recycle the material, according to documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Those documents shed some light on operations at Explo Systems Inc. and...

Climate contradiction: Less snow, more blizzards WASHINGTON (AP) — With scant snowfall and barren ski slopes in parts of the Midwest and Northeast the past couple of years, some scientists have pointed to global warming as the culprit. Then when a whopper of a blizzard smacked the Northeast with more than 2 feet of snow in some places earlier this month, some of the same people again blamed global warming. How can that be? It’s been a joke among skeptics, pointing to what seems to be a braze...

Official: 14 hurt in Kansas City gas blast, fire KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A gas explosion that sparked a massive, block-engulfing blaze in an upscale Kansas City shopping district injured 14 people, a city official said Tuesday evening, adding it is believed that an accident by a utility contractor may have caused the blast. City Manager Troy Schulte said he did not know of anyone being reported missing and had not heard of any fatalities. Earlier Kansas City police had said the blast was cau...

Police: Shot reported at Pensylvania campus was newspaper GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Police in Pennsylvania say a student’s report of a gunshot being fired was instead the sound of a newspaper hitting the sidewalk. Gettysburg police Chief Joseph Dougherty said a Gettysburg College student reported someone in a white sedan fired a shot early Saturday morning. But Dougherty says police investigated and determined the sound came from a newspaper delivery driver throwing a paper from her vehicle. After the r...

10 Things to Know for Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today (all times EST): 1. PISTORIUS CHARGED WITH PREMEDITATED MURDER South African prosecutors say the Olympian shot his girlfriend through his bathroom door after a shouting match. 2. OBAMA TO PRESS CONGRESS ON BUDGET CUTS The president will urge Republicans to accept more tax revenue to avert across-the-board cuts due to take effect in less than ...

4 dead in Calif. carjacking Three people were killed and another wounded by a California gunman who went an on early morning spree of shooting and carjackings before he killed himself when confronted by police. Police in Tustin, Calif., have yet to identify the shooter as they work several crime scenes where the gunman stole cars and shot at people using two rifles. Police received a call about an initial carjacking and shots fired by a suspect carrying "two long guns" a...

McCready's death renews questions for Dr. Drew NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The criticism of Dr. Drew Pinsky spread on the Internet almost as quickly as news of Mindy McCready's death. The country singer with the tumultuous personal life became the fifth cast member of his "Celebrity Rehab" series to die since appearing on the show and the third from Season 3. The previous deaths stirred up rumors of a curse and a debate about the show's helpfulness. McCready's apparent suicide upped the pitch ...

10 Things to Know for Monday, Feb. 18, 2013Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Monday: 1. CHAVEZ RETURNS TO VENEZUELA The president announced his return on Twitter when he arrived early today after over two months of hospital treatment in Cuba. 2. TROUBLED COUNTRY SINGER'S SUICIDE A month after her boyfriend killed himself, 37-year-old Mindy McCready was found dead in her Arkansas home of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 3. OB...

Texas police fatally shoot fugitive Fla. prisoner GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) — The Florida prisoner who escaped in Texas after stabbing a detective with his eyeglasses was fatally shot early Saturday after refusing to cooperate with officers and lunging at them, police said. Alberto Morales was shot in a wooded area of Grapevine, a community near the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. It put an end to a massive five-day manhunt that started when he escaped Monday from a Wal-Mart parking lot ...